The Final Alarm

Fireman’s Prayer

When I am called to duty, God
whenever flames may rage,
Give me the strength to save some life
Whatever be its age.

Help me to embrace a little child
Before it’s too late,
Or some older person
from the horror of that fate.

Enable me to be alert
And hear the weakest shout,
And quickly and efficiently
to put the fire out.

I want to fill my calling
and give the best in me,
To guard my neighbor
And protect his property.

And if according to Your will
I have to lose my life,
Please bless with Your protecting hand
My children and my wife

Every day, when emergency personnel report to work, they risk responding to their "final alarm." They lay their lives on the line for all of us -- just doing their job -- and sometimes they sacrifice it.

It is always tragic. No matter what the circumstances.

Today my cousin Chad was laid to rest by his "brothers" and "sisters" of a small town volunteer fire department, where he served as deputy chief. Even though his death did not occur on the job (he was struck and killed as a pedestrian by an intoxicated driver), personnel from another 9 or 10 departments in the area also responded to pay their last respects.

I hope you never have to go to a "firefighter funeral," but if you do, you'll find it quite moving. One can't help but tear up when wearing a red ribbon of support, reading the Fireman's Prayer (above), hearing the playing of bagpipes and seeing his "brothers" give their final, white-gloved salute at the grave site.

Then there are the surviving family members -- his wife, his children, his father and his mother (my cousin). How do they cope? How will they manage the pain?

All of my siblings except my sister in Texas were able to get off of work long enough today to attend the funeral. There we sat, the 7 of us in a row, each of us the parent of at least one son -- and one sister the mother of a firefighter as well. Each of us thinking the same thing. How would WE cope? How would WE manage the pain?

I pray we never have to, but I know if something like this ever did happen to any of us, we'd have much support like we saw today. This young 34-year-old man (who I mostly remember as a child) touched so many lives they needed to shuttle people in big school buses from a makeshift parking lot at the fire station over to the church, then out to the cemetery and back to the fire hall for lunch.

So many people with so many positive things to say. It made me proud of his public service and proud to call him family.

May God bless him and heal the broken hearts of those who mourn.

Thank you, Chad.

Me and My Big Mouth

While I was busy bad-mouthing the clueless drivers down South yesterday, I failed to pay attention to our own weather situation. I just knew it was going to be warmer temperatures. Oops...

You know you're from Wisconsin (or Minnesota) when you look at the morning temperature before leaving the house, see it's 26 degrees and debate if you need to wear a coat today.

I now am glad I opted to wear it.

I must say it was nice to stop for gas on the way to work and, since it was finally warm enough to loiter outside, I washed the salt off all the windows and headlights. Love me some Spring weather!

Fast forward 2 hours and hubby messages me from home that it is snowing like crazy in Rapids. Say what? I didn't know it was supposed to snow! Turns out we were set to get 3-4 inches or more.

Fast forward another 2 hours and I see I am going to pay for my comments about Atlanta...

Fast forward another hour and I am leaving work at 1 p.m. to make a snowy trek home. Good thing I have learned all those winter driving skills I mentioned yesterday. I needed them.

Robert Frost would love that I took the road less traveled. But that wasn't my intention. It just happened I had no tracks to follow on a state highway and often didn't know which lane I was in. No head-on collisions, thankfully. Just slow and slippery conditions. When I did finally reach the interstate, even that was slow. Saw one vehicle in my rear view mirror fish-tailing -- and I slowed it down even more.

Got home safely and shoveled while hubby manned the snowblower. All's well that ends well, right?

Guess I learned a thing or two about Karma. If you can't say anything nice -- especially about the weather -- don't say anything at all!

Flaking Out

I would never poke fun of a community suffering from a natural disaster. But, I can't resist a few jabs at drivers in Atlanta who cannot handle a few inches of snow. They are literally flaking out!

One headline read: Atlanta descends into complete gridlock after 3 inches of snow

This is serious. Not something from the satirical publication The Onion.

The caption on this photo read: Abandoned cars are piled up on the median of ice-covered Cobb Parkway in Atlanta after a winter snow storm slammed the city with over 2 inches of snow that turned highways into parking lots creating massive traffic jams.

I realize that I am a Northwoods girl, but I find this incredulous. When my sister (also a Northwoods gal) lived north of Atlanta and commuted there daily, she said that on the rare occasion they'd get ice or snow, she would stay home -- not because she couldn't handle it. She was afraid of the other drivers who couldn't!

I am almost relieved Carter is learning to drive during winter. He is forced to get the hang of braking, steering and accelerating on slippery streets -- without causing traffic gridlock.

I suppose we just take these skills for granted. Just like people who drive on 6-lane freeways to go to work and countries where drivers navigate on the "wrong" side of the road. A person gets used to what a person knows.

Still.... This was amusing...

OK, I am done poking fun now. I shouldn't throw stones or snowballs. I mean, if you ever saw me TRY to drive a stick, you'd have "Flaking Out -- The Sequel" in the making!

On the other hand, I used to be a rock star at whipping "doughnuts" on the ice! (You southerners just wouldn't understand.)

Winter ONE-derland

Numerologists might get a kick out of this...

It was back to work for me today. My car and I were reluctant to leave the garage when we saw it was -20 with wind chills in the negative god-awful category. But we made the slippery drive to Iola.

Since I did not go anywhere over lunch (fitness center was closed), my poor little Honda just sat out there in the parking lot shivering. The sunshine was deceiving. I knew better.

Feeling the pangs of guilt for sitting in a warm office for once, I looked up the temperature.

Doesn't it look ONE-derful? No. Not even close. There's no way to rearrange the numbers. It all comes out to equal COLD.

I almost have sympathy for my family in southern, southern Texas. They have a freeze warning tonight and could possibly see some snow for the first time since they lived there. As much as I would have loved to sneak into my mom's suitcase and join her for her long visit down there, I am now glad I didn't. I would be highly frustrated by now with the lack of progress on my tan lines!

Still, 40 degrees down there is, well, at least 40 degrees warmer than here. That part I would enjoy.

Instead, we living in our Winter ONE-derland and anxious for this warm spell coming. In weatherman's speak, that means temps ABOVE zero.

That truly will be wonderful. We'll take it.

Cold Snap

You know why they call it a "cold snap"? Because some of us are so sick of the cold, we are about to snap!

Not kids, though. No, not kids.

After having two snow / cold days off of school right after Christmas break, Carter also starts this week with two more on the heels of a Friday record-keeping day off.  Nope, kids are not complaining.

Do they realize what it means that we are two days over our snow-day limit for the school year already?

I can see Carter's essay next fall on "How I spent my summer vacation" with the words: "Well, we went to school until July 4th to make up snow/cold days and then got a day off to see fireworks."

Let's hope we are done with these Polar Vortex Days from the Arctic Blasts (they don't even sugar coat it as a "cold snap").

The -55-degree wind chills definitely scared me into working in the warmth of my home office today. When I did have to run a quick errand in town, the roads were slick and I froze so fast in the 15-second spurts I was out of the vehicle. Not surprised I didn't see many people anywhere. Who would go anywhere unless they HAD to?

Tomorrow will be different, though. Carter will have to do the homework he didn't do Friday, Saturday, Sunday or today (since he had a friend over). I had a productive day but am heading back to the office -- even though the forecast is close to the same but just slightly "warmer," if you can call it that at this level. Hubby will be happy when Wednesday rolls around and he can finally have the house to himself!

Sometimes silence trumps body heat.

Sometimes.

Prayer Chain

When this morning's sermon at church focused on John 3:16, I had no idea there were more lessons of sons and sacrifice to be learned today...

I don't care how spiritual or religious or close to perfect anyone claims to be. None of us would willingly sacrifice our sons (or daughters), would we? I don't think so.

But I imagine it's not any easier to have them taken from us on God's terms, either.

Today I have two sons of God (and sons of cousins) who I am praying for and asking you to join me. One is on my mom's side of the family and the other on my dad's.

Shortly after church, I learned that my cousin's 34-year-old son (a father himself) was struck and killed by a car while he was walking alongside the road in the early morning darkness. Authorities reported, "It was snowing heavily at the time and poor visibility was a factor in the accident."

I don't know any further details. No matter what the circumstances, though, it is a terrible tragedy for his wife and daughter, his parents and family, and his fellow members of the volunteer fire department where he served as Deputy Chief.

The truly tragic irony is that my cousin and her sister have both lost sons now. And both by accident. I can tell you as a mother that it doesn't matter if he is 8 years old (like my cousin who died 30-some years ago) or 34 years old, losing a child would break my heart into a million pieces.

Please pray for Chad and all who knew and loved him.

On the other side of the world, another cousin's first grandchild was born today on a military base in the south Pacific. This struggling boy arrived 5 weeks early. He is in a military hospital without an NICU. His lungs weren't ready for this early arrival, so if they aren't able to help him in Guam, he may be sent to Japan for care.

Please pray for little Avery, his family and the medical professionals called to help him.

And, if you are able to hug your child today (or reach them via phone or email), please pray to God and thank Him!

I know there's one teenager on Blue Jay Drive feeling a bit smothered today. But I am just so grateful to have him. To hold him. To love him.

For today.

Souper Bowl

I'll give our South Wood County Humane Society a lot of credit. Despite chilly temps and wind, they drew a huge crowd of participants and "viewers" to their Souper Snow Sculpture Spectacular today.

I am on the planning committee for our upcoming South Wood County Empty Bowls fundraising event to fight hunger. For some reason, we signed up again this year to be a team and sculpt "something" to reflect our mission. Leaving the house this morning with the temperature at a mere 4 degrees, I wondered what we got ourselves into.

Did I say "we"? Oh yes, Carter was a reluctant "volunteer" as well.

By the time we got there -- an hour into it -- our big square block of icy snow was already starting to take shape. Can't you tell?

Carter did do some chiseling and chipping, but mostly whined about the cold. "Mom, what does it mean when I can't feel my hands and face?" Uhm, that you didn't dress warmly enough! Heaven forbid he wear long underwear and snow pants like I did. He got a free pass for most of it anyway. By the time he had some warm soup inside and changed out of his allegedly "warm" clothes, he had to go to driver's ed. behind-the-wheel training with his instructor for two hours.

Needless to say, by the time he was done, so were we. But not without a few challenges.

Our spoon in our "Empty Bowl" broke so we had to glue it (freeze it) together. Then after chiseling out letters about our event, we were going to spray colored water on them so they would stand out. Well the straw part on the inside of my spray bottle (our only team one on site) broke. So one person went to the dollar store and I went inside the mall. (This was conveniently held in the mall parking lot.)

I knew the only possible store in there that might have a squirt bottle was the Bethesda Thrift Shop. I told them what I needed and all we could track down was a BBQ baster and one of those blue, baby booger-sucker-outers. With no other alternatives, I brought them to the checkout counter, where the cashier said she also found a Windex bottle under the counter and it was mostly gone. She threw that in for free. I just cleaned it out, added water and food coloring and we were good to go!

The other person got a bottle, too, and away we started! Only had to make one run back into the building when our nozzles froze up. Yes, it was cold out there. Sunny and double digits but extremely windy and cold.

We got done right at 2 p.m.

Looks pretty good, eh? Nothing fancy. We were there to spread our message. But there were some pretty elaborate designs among the dozen teams out there.

I found a cupcake just my size! I was going to take a lick of it (I'm not twerking, I swear), but I figured I'd get my tongue stuck to it like Flick and the flagpole in A Christmas Story. I realized then it was too stinkin' cold to hang around and take pictures so I will stop by tomorrow and shoot some after church -- assuming it stays cold enough so they don't melt by then.

Ha.

It did happen one year! Not gonna this year.

Now I'm all tuckered out from all that fresh air! Carter is at a dance at school. I guess if you spend most of your "snow sculpturing" time indoors, you have energy to dance!

I'd rather have my green food-coloring fingers and know I did my little part.